


feelings in my headspace rearranged

by rooneykmara



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-08-15 20:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8071942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rooneykmara/pseuds/rooneykmara
Summary: In which Molly has always mattered and Sherlock has always known. He just doesn’t have the words to let her know.





	1. Chapter 1

At their first meeting, only weeks after his second stay at rehab comes to a muted end, the buzzing in his head spurs on deductions that he doesn't actually mean to make.

He spits out a torrent of facts, ranging from her ownership of an orange tabby to her dead parents to her insecurities over having received this position at Barts at such a young age.

She merely tilts her head and listens, looking neither upset nor particularly impressed.

"Right, okay. You're in withdrawal. The samples from the body that just came in are running."

She turns away and walks into her office. The plaque on her door says Dr. Molly Hooper.

 --

A few weeks later, he relapses. She finds him, passed out in a Barts loo, and calls the last number she finds on his phone.

Mycroft hauls him back to rehab, and pushes him through the doors of the building with the quiet threat that if he were to relapse again, rehab would no longer be an option. This time, his stay is far from quiet.

And for some reason, during the next six months (Mycroft takes nothing to chance and books him for a longer stay), he thinks of Dr. Molly Hooper, and how easily she deduced _him._ And he thinks of all the deductions… observations…facts he has yet to determine from _her_.

 --

When he returns, they develop a working, if not relationship, an agreement. They sit, side by side most days, on adjacent spaces of the counter, Molly with her paperwork spread before her and Sherlock with his eyes peeled to the microscope eyepiece.

It’s a quiet Saturday afternoon of this nature, when he asks a question that has been bouncing in his thoughts for a while.

"When we first met, you knew that I was in withdrawal. You knew someone, didn't you?"

"Hm. My mum."

She shrugs as she moves to collect files from across the room.

"She was always saying things she didn't mean."

\--

He tries to distract himself by scribbling inconsequential notes about the corpse (he never writes notes) feeling more ridiculous than he ever has before and wonders why, of all things, this is so hard for him.

"Molly, I..."

She looks up.

He loses his train of thought. "You're wearing lipstick, you weren't wearing lipstick before."

She shrugs. "I refreshed it a bit. You were saying?"

"Oh. I was wondering...do you want to grab some coffee?"

Molly frowns. "Yeah, I guess I can get some from the canteen... How do you take it?"

He slowly blinks. Somehow, something had gone wrong. "Um, black two sugars."

He tries to salvage the situation, figuring he could make a motion to grab the beverages instead from the canteen upstairs. "Um, I'll be upstairs so I..."

Molly rolls her eyes and stalks away.

\--

Upstairs in the lab, he pipets mindlessly, his thoughts a jumble, oscillating somewhere between identifying the bacterial strain and unease over an upcoming coffee delivery.

Mike Stamford and another man walk in and for several minutes his attention focuses, pinpointing on John Watson, the Afghanistan veteran with a psychosomatic limp. 

Molly walks into the room with his coffee. As she steps towards him, she turns and notices John, gives him a small friendly smile. John in turn returns it with a much bigger grin in return and Molly's eyes light up at its magnitude.

Sherlock's skin itches. And before he can stop it, words spew forth yet again.

"What happened to the lipstick?"

She turns her head from John.

"What? Oh, it wasn't working for me."

"Really? I thought it was a big improvement. Your mouth is too small now."

She rolls her eyes.

"Right, okay."

\--

"Jim!"

Later, Sherlock would realize that if he hadn't been so focused on proving that the man was gay, he would have picked up on so many other things.

\--

Afterwards, after the Semtex and the red pinpoint lasers and that god awful ringtone, he dials her as they're leaving the pool.

It goes to her voicemail.

It feels like there is something stuck in his throat. Something large and solid and he can't swallow. Can barely breathe.

"Sherlock? Sherlock, are you okay? Who are you calling?"

He ignores John and leans forward. "Change of destination. I'll pay double your regular fare if you can get us to Barts as fast as possible."

\--

He feels like he has been sucker punched.

There, scrawled messily on the tag: Dearest John. Love, Molly xxx.

"You always say such horrible things. Every time. Always. Always.”

He hears a roaring behind his ears. An utter, disquiet shame.

He steps closer to her, feels the silver bow scratch his cheek as he bends his head. He presses his lips against her cool cheek.

"I am sorry. Forgive me. Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper."

She meets his eyes and then glances over his shoulder at John. No doubt mortified by the the attention of his flatmate as well as the whole room, she leans over and grabs the present from his hands. Stuffs it in her handbag.

He opens his mouth again, feeling there has to be something he can do to fix this, and wishes again that he could talk to John.

But how could he? After all, John thought that love was a mystery to Sherlock.  That it was something he didn't understand at all, outside of its chemical basis. John did not know that Sherlock was even capable of the primal anger that had erupted within his chest the second that he had seen Molly at the door in that dress and known it was for a man. And John definitely did not know that the man in question was _him_.

And then his phone makes one particular sound and he's not sure whether it's the worst timing ever or the best.

\--

"You think she’s my girlfriend because I’m X-raying her possessions?"

Molly laughs brightly. “Well, we all do silly things."

Finding her words hit too closely to home, he agrees, changing the pronoun. “They do, don’t they?”

\--

"You look sad. You look sad when he can't see you," he motions toward John, "When you're not trying to keep up your facade around him. Why are you sad?"

She exhales and bites her lip.

She speaks quietly, preventing her voice from resounding in the lab. "It's my dad. Well, kind of. He's dead. It's the anniversary of his death."

She looks thoughtful now. "What you just said, how I look sad when no one can see me...he once said those same words to me. Said that I was trying too hard to be happy, to not look sad around him when he was dying."

She makes a small uncomfortable sound. "I know it's stupid, that there's a case and a murderer to catch, and here I am thinking about my dead dad. And he was right, I am completely rotten at hiding my emotions. Even you can see me."

He tries to ignore the twisting in his chest at the word even and gives a wan smile, darting another glance at John to make sure he's still not paying attention.

He tries for flippancy but somehow, falls short. “Well, it’s not me that counts is it?"

Her eyes narrow and he wonders if maybe that was Not Good.

He racks his brain, trying to piece together an appropriately comforting sentence. "Anyways, if there's anything you need, anything at all, you can have me."

He frowns. That particular ordering of those words is not quite what he wanted to come out.

"I mean..."

Her brow furrows. "But what could I need from you?"

His shoulders drop imperceptibly. “Nothing. Nothing at all."

She winces, and for once it's Molly Hooper who has misspoken. "Um, I’m going to go and get some crisps. Do you want anything?”

He shakes his head and turns back to the microscope.

\--

"You're wrong, you know."

He turns around. Molly is standing in the doorway, her outline illuminated by the light from the hallway behind her.

There is a burning in her eyes.

"Of course you count! You've always counted and I've always trusted you. And I can tell you're not okay. Just like you could tell with me."

So. What do you need?"

And he finally gets to say what he's been trying to for years.

"You."

 


	2. Chapter 2

After two years of being away, of being dead, he comes back to find that everyone around him is suddenly intent on walking down the aisle to matrimony. When he finally acknowledges Molly’s decision to do so by offering his congratulations, she immediately starts listing facts about her betrothed.  

He knows that her firm declaration that she met him through friends, through a vetted process, is a protective measure against criticism that he could lobby against her. That she had fallen for yet another criminal mastermind only interested in her due to her association with Sherlock Holmes.

He tries to rest her doubts about this man, this man she was introduced to through her friends. He’s amazed at himself. He has never felt the desire to comfort like this before, a false comfort not based in any sort of observation or deduction at all as he has not even had a glimpse of this man yet.

"Not everyone you fall for can be a sociopath.”

“No?”

“No.”

And he walks heading to the chip shop, musing that yet again his attempt to ask Molly Hooper out for food had failed.

\--

"Going somewhere?"

He turns around. Her yellow bow flutters in the night breeze, illuminated by the fairy lights hanging on every tree.

"Getting some fresh air."

She looks around the garden, almost as though she's checking the freshness of the air by sight alone. She sits down on a bench at the edge of the rose bushes, motions for him to do the same by patting the space next to her. And even though he had just been walking away, he acquiesces.

Sensing that he's not about to start talking, she takes up the task.

"It's so weird being here, you know? It just reminded me how I used to feel about him."

He's yanked from his thoughts. "Oh."

"Oh, I don't feel like that anymore. It's just, I don't understand really understand why I liked him honestly. He doesn’t quite seem to be my type. "

He parrots her long-ago words back to her.

"Well, we all do silly things."

She raises an eyebrow.

"We?"

He tries to detour her attention.

"I saw you stabbing Meat Dagger in the thigh with a fork." 

“Ugh. What was that? Why _Meat_ Dagger? I’ve never heard him express any interest in the use of meat as a weapon before.”

He smirks. “No childhood aspirations of being a murderous butcher?”

“None that I know of. Though if he did, maybe then he wouldn’t be so squeamish about what I do.” 

He turns, surprised at her disgruntled tone. “Well, you never know. There might still be hope for him as a sociopath after all.”

She cracks a grin at him.

\--

The crack of her palm hitting his flesh resounds so loudly in the lab that his ears ring for several seconds afterwards.

“Sorry your engagement is over. Though I’m fairly grateful for the lack of a ring.”

And God, it's the truth, isn't it?

\--

After it’s all said and done, as he’s sitting in the temporary holding cell with the knowledge of what Mycroft has planned for his punishment, he suddenly realizes that he has to let her know somehow. She has always known him, the version that was closest to the truth, and he can’t leave to his death without her knowing this last final truth he has to offer.

He spins to face the camera in the corner of the room. “Mycroft. I must speak with him. And tell him to bring paper and pen.”

An hour later, Mycroft enters and sets the pen and paper down on the lone desk in the corner. He sighs tiredly. “For what it’s worth, I don’t recommend telling her anything, brother mine. And I don’t think that I have to tell you that if you give away too many details, this letter will never touch her hands.”

Sherlock smirks. “For the last time, Mycroft, it would be prudent if you dismiss the notion that you’re the smarter one. I know exactly what should and should not be in the letter.”

“And you _will_ personally guarantee that it reaches her. It’s the least you owe me, don’t you think?”

Mycroft only returns his stare without blinking, nods briefly, and leaves the room. Sherlock grabs the paper and pen and starts to write.

_Molly,_

_I find myself yet again in a situation of my own design. Yet you cannot save me this time._

_I must go away and I will not be returning. John and the others believe I will be back in six months. I will not. Mycroft will take care of the arrangements of filling them in when it is time._

_Yet again, I am asking you to keep my secret. Only this time, there is nothing you can do._

_I don't know why I am telling you this. I just have to- I cannot leave without you knowing. It seems that when it comes to you, I always get the words wrong. I always do miss something._

_But I need you to know this._

_Last year, I told you that you mattered the most. That was not a recent development._

_To me, you have always mattered the most. And you always will._

_Yours,_

_Sherlock_

\--

**_Did you miss me?_ **

\--

She opens the door. Her eyes widen in shock.

“Sherlock! I thought…”

"It seems I received a reprieve."

Her grip on the door tightens. ”I read your letter."

He takes in a shaky breath. Before he can continue, spilling out something, everything, she minutely shakes her head.

She steps forward, clasps her hand within his.

She exhales. “Right, okay.” She squeezes his hand. “Let’s try again, shall we?”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from "Fools" by Lauren Aquilina. Every single one of her songs gives me the most intense of Sherlolly feels-- there's a music video to "Irrelevant" (another one of her songs) on YouTube that pretty much breaks me in two.


End file.
